To address your pressing issue rental application and lease see my thoughts below.Rental Application - You can get several rental application templates online and here on BP.

Since then he has sold 15 homes this year and the clock is still....I don't know your financial situation but, the lease option will provide you with a nice $15-$20k down payment that you can apply to the more pressing expenses and try to re-coop any losses on the property by selling it with solid tenants in place.

Have your broker press the other broker for a response.

Therefore, you are going to be hard pressed to find a conventional lender to give you the money to do a flip and turn around and pay off the loan in 6 months.

Press hard and save yourself some dough.

Don’t Quit When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When fund are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Dory; You raise the most pressing questions, especially w/ FHA lenders not allowing or considering certain fees, I've seen them not allow a $150 dollar real estate agent marketing or listing fee, something like that, but my point, if they are that picky with a 150 dollar fee, I can only imagine the wrath I would receive on a 30-40k "finders" or "assignment" fee :) However, to play devils advocate, I would have the seller sign a simple "invoice" for the assignment fee, BEFORE I submitted the end buyer, in addition, the transaction would be null in void if this fee was not paid out of seller's funds.

NOLO Press has a good website and many legal self help books.

I think you will be hard pressed to cash flow at those numbers (or anything close to it actually).  

Christopher Sica you might be hard pressed to find 2% work in Austin...